You asked
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information:
1) The number of deaths in England and Wales attributed to ketamine in the following years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.
If possible, could you please break down the number of deaths by year.
We said
Many thanks for your recent request.
We produce an annual report on deaths relating to drug poisoning. Drug poisoning deaths involve a broad spectrum of substances, including legal and illegal drugs, prescription type drugs and over-the-counter medications. Tables 6a to 6d published alongside the bulletin show the different drugs involved in each death for England and Wales, unfortunately ketamine is not published within these tables.
The number of deaths where ketamine was mentioned on the death certificate for the year 2016 can be found in a previous ad-hoc request.
Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to: mortality@ons.gov.uk. We recommend that you contact the Mortality Analysis team directly in order to discuss your data requirements in more detail.
As the only information that can be provided is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.